FLORENCE, Ky. — Rand Paul grabbed a microphone, climbed onto a short brick wall and told a gathering crowd of supporters to brace for an Election Day uprising on Tuesday.

“There’s a Tea Party tidal wave coming. It’s already hit Utah and it’s coming to Kentucky,” Mr. Paul said, delivering a confident pep talk here in the closing hours of the Republican primary for a United States Senate seat. “The day of reckoning is coming. We cannot elect the same old politicians without getting the same old mess.”

If his confidence is borne out by victory, it would mark one of the most important moments yet for the Tea Party, the anti-Washington, anti-big government movement that was partially inspired by the quixotic 2008 presidential race of his father, Representative Ron Paul of Texas.

Establishment Republicans — including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, former Vice President Dick Cheney and the Chamber of Commerce — have united in opposition to Mr. Paul, but optimism was diminishing that their candidate, Trey Grayson, could prevail.

The Paul-Grayson race has been fairly interesting to watch, if only because of the manner in which it’s laid bare the differences between the establishment GOP and the Tea Parties. Grayson, Kentucky’s Secretary of State and a long-time Republican activist, has received support from Washington Republicans like Dick Cheney and Mitch McConnell. On the other hand Rand Paul, a Lexington, KY eye surgeon who’s main involvement in politics prior to today was during his father’s campaigns, has garnered the support of Senators Jim DeMint and the retiring Jim Bunning. Most recently, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson took the unusual step of switching his endorsement from Grayson to Paul after revealing that an unnamed party, later identified as Mitch McConnell, had been misleading Dobson about Paul’s views on abortion.

By frequently putting Rand Paul, the son of Ron Paul and Grayson’s opponent, on its air, Grayson says the network has all but endorsed Paul and given him an easy way to tout his candidacy without actually meeting Kentucky voters in person.

“I’ve been on Fox News once, on a live feed on one of the shows, and I was told I was to expect a certain line of questioning, and I was given a different line of questioning,” Grayson said. Referring to Rand Paul, Grayson said, “He’s on all of the time.”

“His dad had these phenomenal contacts, so … he’s on Fox News every couple of weeks with softballs,” said Grayson. Imitating an anchor’s voice, Grayson said the questions are softballs such as, “Rand, tell us about health care, you’re a doctor. Rand, tell us about the tea party.”

When a politician starts saying things like that, especially when there are only a few hours to go before voting starts, you can pretty much conclude that they’ve seen the last of the internal polls and they’re pretty sure they’re going to lose.

As for Paul himself, we’re likely to be hearing much more from him after Tuesday night. There’s still a General Election campaign to get through in November, of course, but the odds of a Republican losing in statewide race Kentucky in a year that seems destined to be good for Republicans in general seem pretty darn low to say the least. In the meantime, other Republicans might be interesting in figuring out how he’s accomplished the seeming impossible:

The political genius of Paul is his ability to cultivate a narrative that speaks to all strains of the Tea Party movement at once. After all, the libertarian purists who loved Ron Paul’s dissident truth-telling are not natural allies of the Limbaugh Dittoheads who dismissed him as an eccentric. He sings his libertarianism in the key of Glenn Beck – and he is writing a Republican playbook for the tea party era, turning grassroots energy into electoral power. Now, less than a week before the primary, polls show Paul’s lead over Grayson approaching 20 points. He also leads both of his potential Democratic challengers in the general election polling

It’s the kind of fusion that Republicans in other states will need to create if they’re going to prevail as well, and it all started in Kentucky.

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Tom Beebe

Well, I ceased to call myself a Republican when I concluded, after reading the book “Where Keynes Went Wrong”, that Paul Sr. was on target with his anti-Fed campaign. I was fed up with too much corruption in either major party, and the GOP’s ever drifting to more spending and larger government. Combine all the things you believe in and the Libertarians don’t look so bad. Have one, like Paul Jr get an authentic victory within the GOP and you are truly energized. There’s hope, after One Big Ass Mistake America.

Michael O. Powell

“By frequently putting Rand Paul, the son of Ron Paul and Grayson’s opponent, on its air, Grayson says the network has all but endorsed Paul and given him an easy way to tout his candidacy without actually meeting Kentucky voters in person.”

By that logic, MSNBC all but endorsed Paul by inviting him on to Rachel Maddow’s show frequently.

suicideclutch

Will somebody tell me what the Tea Party really is? I see a great divide hear. If Rand is in, then great, maybe I’m in but if Palin is in, what’s that about? Didn’t Gingrich at one point attach himself to it like a parasitic hitchhiker? Lets clean this thing up. Until then, I’m probably stearing clear and staying libertarian.

Controlphreak

duh, the entire Tea Party meme has been a pure media construct since 2008 when the mainstream media decided to make up a reconstruction of a simple idea to raise money for Ron Paul’s Presidential election. Some contributors to this blog also decided to do their best to derail that as well.

At any rate, the mainstream brought in Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and other people that they knew would undermine the entire spirit of the original event and their mission has since been accomplished.

In the end there is no mainstream political orchestrated phenomenon you should join. If you missed it back when it was real then you’ll just be a tourist or much much much worse the 2nd time around.